Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Does Management Reporter (MR) work with SQL Server 2008? Yes, if you apply SP2 which has been recently released by Microsoft. I have tested this with huge improvements in performance. But that is not the reason for this blog. Something a lot more sinister is afoot.

I started the MR rollout to the business after upgrading all our pre-sp2 installs. We migrated the ManagementReporter database from the SQL Server 2005 environment to the SQL 2008 environment with no problems.

Here is the BUT. When you install MR on a clean machine you MUST, during the install process give it a valid ManagementReporter database to connect to. Now in order to install SP2 you must firstly install RTM. SP2 is designed to work with 2008 but RTM does not and lets you know in no uncertain terms. So you sit with a chicken/egg story. You want to install SP2 to make it work with 2008 but because the DB is 2008 you cannot firstly install RTM.

Work around. DO NOT delete a copy of MR DB which you have anywhere on the network that is already on SQL 2000/2005. Or just install a DB from the RTM version on to any 2005 SQL box. During the client install you must point to this DB in order to get RTM complete. Apply SP2 and then create a new connection to the 2008 DB and delete the old connection. Simple but unfortunately necessary.